Disclaimer: This fan fiction is not written for profit and no infringement of copyright is intended. Unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are mine. Please note that this story contains references to D/s relationships as well as a female dominant and a male submissive. If that's not your thing then this story is probably not for you. Likewise if copious amounts of sex scenes turn you off. But... If all this sounds like your bag then welcome aboard! Enjoy!
CHAPTER ONE: HONEST
You know, sometimes I think you like getting punched.
Bucky's words have been going around and around in Steve's head for a week now.
Ever since he came back from Siberia. Ever since he and Natasha made their report to Fury about what remained of the Red Room Academy and its ties to the Winter Soldier Programme. Ever since Yelena Belova tied him to a chair and decided to torture whatever information she could out of him before Romanova rescued his butt. Steve tries to keep the voice away, tries to tell himself that what happened doesn't matter. Tries even to pretend that what Belova did to him- and his response to it- was an understandable reaction to the interrogation and nothing more.
But he can't do it.
It isn't in him to lie like that, most especially to himself.
Steve knows he's not nearly the paragon he's been portrayed as but if there is one thing he's not, it's dishonest.
And pretending he doesn't know instinctively that what happened between him and Belova was wrong would be dishonesty of the highest order. It's a lie he can't even begin to make himself tell, though he thinks he maybe should. Because when he felt Belova pull the ropes tighter, when he felt that dizzy, roiling mix of pain and helplessness and, and… pleasure… as she straddled him and demanded answers, he'd known there was nothing right or proper about his reaction. The arousal he'd felt hadn't been natural. It had been wrong. Distasteful. Freakish. So far from who he thought he was that he wasn't sure he could stomach acknowledging it. And it had made him feel complicit somehow in the horrible things Belova put him and Natasha through, the things she made his team-mate watch just for the fun of it.
"You want this," Belova kept saying to him, and she kept grinning at Natasha as she did it. "You want this so much it shames you, doesn't it, mwoi meel?"
And then she'd pull the ropes tighter still, tight enough to stop his pulse, tight enough to choke another man-
Steve had hates that some part of him knows she was right, hates it in a way he's never hated anything before.
Because how can I be trusted to be everything I'm supposed to be, he wonders, to be leader of the Avengers, when I have this secret- this vice- constantly rattling around in my brain?
So he keeps himself quiet, and he punches as many bags as he can lay his hands on. Gets Barton to train with him in hand to hand and Hill to train him in everything else. Gives advice to Thor about human women and support to Fury when he needs a member of the team to back his play. He even allows Tony and Pepper- so much a single unit these days that there's little point in mentioning them separately- to bring him out on the town, try to get him set up with someone (or under someone, in one of Stark's frequent, inappropriate asides). The only person he avoids Natasha, because she saw what happened. She knows the truth, and he's reminded of it every time she meets his eyes. But none of it works. It can't do. He knows it can't. Steve knows he's- He's not the kind of man a woman would want, not anymore.
And so he keeps his silence- and his distance from Natasha. Tries to make peace with knowing that what he wants makes him… unsuitable. Unnatural. Weak. The figure of a man instead of the substance of one. Because no matter what he tries he can't seem to outrun this-
And he fears deep down that he never will.